A Tsarist Attempt at Opening the Northern Sea Route:
The Arctic Oeean Hydrographie Expedition, 1910-1915
By William Barr'
Abstract: At present th e Soviel Northern See Route represents an important communications artery of th e Soviel Union. Although t he development of t he Sca Route is very largely aSoviel phenomenon, achieved largely since 1934, it owes a great d ee l to th e effor ts of the Tsarist icebreakers Taymyr and Vaygach during the periocl 1910-1915, In aseries of voyages, known as the Arctic Ocean Hydrographie Expedition, they completed th e first modern survey of the Sea Route fram Bering Strait to the mouth of the Yenisey. They also discovered the archipelago of Severnaya Zemlya, anel carried out the first east- west traverse of the Northern Sea Route.
Zusammenfassung: Der Nordsibirische Seeweg stellt heutzutage eine Hauptverkehrsader der Sowjetunion dar. Obgleich die Schaffung dieses Seeweges in erster Linie eine sowjetische Unternehmung ist, die vor allem seit 1934 betrieben wurde, verdankt er seine Verwirklichung doch in hohem Maße den Vorarbeiten der zaristischen Eisbrecher Taymyr und VCl"ygach. In einer Reihe von Fahrten ~ als Hydrographische Expedition in das Nördliche Eismeer bekannt - führten diese Schiffe 1910-1915 die erste moderne Ver~
messung des Nordsibirischen Seeweges von der Beringstraße bis zur MÜndung des Jenissej durch. Sie entdeckten auch den Sewernaja Semlja-Archipel und vollzogen die erste Durchfahrt des Nords ib ir is dien Seeweges von Osten nach Westen.
The work of the Imperial Navy icebreaking steamers Taymyr and Vaygach during the period 1910-1915, represents the first modern attempt at a systematic survey of the arctic waters to the north of Siberia, thraugh which runs the transport artery known as the Northern Sea Route. Since those initial surveys, and particularly since 1934 under the Soviet regime, the Northern Sea Route has become an important communica- tions artery of the Soviet Union,
The current general picture of the Northern Sea Route is of convoys of ships, with icebreaker escort, sailing each summer Irorn Arkhangel'sk or Murmansk in the west to the Ob' and Yenisey (Armstrong, 1972). Meanwhile convoys fr orn Pacific ports pass through Bering Strait and serve the major eastern Siberian rivers, the Lena, Yana, Indigirka and Kolyma, but particularly the latter. Through voyages along the entire route can be and are made as occasion demands, but this would be a negligible fraction of the tonnage involved in the two movements already mentioned.
The main elements of the Yenisey traffic are timber fram Igarka and copper/nickel ores from the mines at Noril'sk from Dudinka (Armstrong, 1973:743), In 1973 Dudinka handled arecord 3,225,000 metric tons (Armstrong, 1974:174). The volume of the Igarka timber traffic is of the or der of 600,000 metric tons annually. An interesting new development in the west is the growth of the port of Nadym on Obskaya Guba as a major centre in the rapidly developing Northwest Siberian gas field. In this connection, there was extensive dredging of the navigation channel between Nadym and the sea in 1972
(Armstrong, 1973 :742).
Most of the freighters used on the Sea Route are ice-strengthened. They are of relatively sm all tonnage (less than 15,000 tons deadweight). This is probably due to the limitations posed by the shallowness of the Kara Sea, and even more so by that of the Laptev Sea arid East Siberian Sea. For this reason, too, the Soviets have evinced little interest in the cruise of the giant tanker Manhattan through the Northwest Passage in 1969, and there is little likelihood that they will introduce such giants into the Northern Sea Route .
• Professor William Ban, Dep artment of Geography, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Sask. (Canada).
An abridged version of this article was presented at the Third Western Canada Conference on Soviet and East European Studies , Victoria, B, C" March 22, 1975.
H'
10'
o' W· 10' 20'
tfi·
BARENTS SEA
3(1" IIJ' slf- 00· 10" w"
Sl:alc in Milet
W· ",'
110' 10'
,,'
Fig. 1: The western part 01 the Northern See Route.
Abb. 1: Der wesUiche Teil des Nordsibirischen Seeweges.
w'
LAPTEV SEA
,,,'
'00' 170' '00' 110·OSTRQV ( )
VRANGElYA MYSfO....y
CHUKCHI
SEA
*FORMER SITE OF OSTROV SEMENQVSKlY&.OSTROV VASIL'EVSKIY
300, 'W·
Fig. 2: The eastern part 01 the Northern Se a Route.
Abb. 2: Der östliche Teil des Nordsibirischen Seeweges.
Somewhere in the order of 14 icebreakers are normally deployed along the route during the navigation season. They include the atomic-powered icebreaker Lenin, the first in the world. After a major refit, including the installing of new reactors, which involved her being taken out of service for four seasons, she returned to the Northern Sea Route in 1971. Anothcr atomic-powered icebreaker, Arktika has reeently been launched, and underwent her trials last fall (1974).
The entire length of the Northern Sea Route has now been furnished with automatie radio beaeons with a range of 150 km. Automatic lightbeaeons and manned polar stations at strategic points have also greatly eased navigation along the route. The use of helicopters, flying from the icebreakers is as general on the Northern Sea Route as it is in the Canadian Arctic; they are invaluable for ice reconnaissance.
Soviet iee forecasters, like their Canadian counterparts are making inereasing use of satellite photographs. Another innovation, providing clearer imagery, is the use of Toros radar equipment, mounted in AN-24 aireraft. This provides an almost synoptie pieture of ice conditions: since the survey is flown at 6,000 m it provides a clearer pieture than does the satellite photography.
The shipping season normally begins in early July and finishes by late October. Arecent development, however, has been a late-season convoy to the Yenisey, greatly lengthen- ing the season. The first of these was in 1970. Thus in 1972-73 nine freighters arrived at Dudinka around December 21, left again on January 12, and arrived baek at Murmansk on January 27 (Armstrong, 1973:743), They were escorted by five ieebreakers, including Lenin. Late in 1973, the experiment was repeated but at a slightly earlier date . the last freighter left the Yenisey on December 13, reaching Murmansk by Christmas (Armstrong,
1974:174).
Each year the Sea Route is also used for transporting river eraft to the various Siberian rivers from the White Sea. An interesting feature since 1970 has been the movement of floating thermal power stations from Tyumen' on the Ob' to various destinations in Siberia and European Russia. the group-name for these 'cratt' is Severnoye Siyanie (Northern Lights). The first, in 1970, was towed east to Zelenyy Mys at the mouth of the Kolyma, where it is supplying power to the Bilibino goldfields and to the atomic power station under construction there. In 1971 a seeond one moved down the Ob' and west to Pechora on the river of the same name. In 1973, a third one was towed east, bound for Eldikan on the Aldan (Armstrong, 1974:175). A fourth one is under con- struction, and is intended Ior Mys Shmidta on the Chukotka coast.
Finally, it should be mentioned that tourist ships now ply the waters of the Northern Sea Route. The passenger vessels Tatariya and Vatslav Vorovskiy cruise the Kara and Barents seas from Arkhangel'sk and Murmansk. In 1971 the latter vessel even called at Ostrov Kheysa in Zemlya Frantsa Iosifa (81ON).
This entire eommunieations complex, with all its eeonomic and strategic ramifications, and all its scientifie support sectors, can be validly described as an outgrowth of the pioneer surveys of Taymyr and Vaygach, some 60-65 years ago. But in 1905, when the idea of mounting the Arctic Ocean Hydrographie Expedition was first mooted, know- ledge of the Northern Sea Route was extremely limited, and utilization of the route even less. While three expeditions had rounded Mys Chelyuskina, those of Norden- skiö ld in 1878 (Nordenskiöld, 1881), Nansen in 1893 (Nanserr, 1897) and Toll in 1901 (Toll, 1909), only one vessel, Nordenskiöld's Vega had completed the through passage.
While Nordenskiöld, Nansen and Toll had accomplished a considerable amount of survey work, the only charts available for a considerable part of the route were those produced by early nineteenth century surveyors such as Anjo u and Vrangel', or, to an even greater extent, by the offieers of the Great Northern Expedition of 1733-43. There
were no weather stations, no lighthouses, no radio stations. While the Kara Sea Route might be said to have come of age with the massive expedition of 1905 to the Yenisey (four steamers, four tugs, eleven lighters and two icebreakers), aimed at relieving pressure on the overstrained Transsiberian Railwey during the Russo-Japanese War (Pinkhenson, 1962:421-423), this was the absolute limit of commercial traffic on the Northern Sea Route, There was no commercial shipping east of the Yenisey or west of Bering Strait.
Finally, and perhaps most surprising of all, one of the major arctic archipelagos still remained to be discovered: while Novaya Zemlya, Zemlya Frantsa Iosifa, Novosibirskiye Ostroya, Ostrova Medvezh'i and Ostrov Vrangelya had all been explored and charted tolerably weil, the presence of Severnaya Zemlya was quite unkriown. None of the three expeditions which had sailed round Mys Chelyuskina, or Semen Chelyusklns overland expedition in 1742 had spotted the mountains of Ostrov Bol'shevik, so me 60 km to the north. Further, in her drift north and west from Novosibirskiye Ostrova Nansens Fram had passed weil to the north of the unsuspected archipelago, Perhaps this is the true measure of how little was known of the Northern Sea Route in 1905,
PLANS FOR THE EXPEDITION
Stimulus for renewed interest in the Northern Sea Route at this time, to the extent of building the icebreakers Taymyr and Vaygach, and dispatching them on a five-year survey of the route, was undoubtedly provided by the Russo-Japanese War. Part of the stimulus, as inferred earlier, was the inability of the Transsiberian Railway to handle the enormous traffic it was asked to move during the war. Probably a more telling argument, however, was the belief that had Rozhdestvenskiy's squadr on been able to avail itself of a relatively short Northern Sea Route, parallelling the co asts of the Motherland all the way, rather than having to tackle the 10-month voyage via Cape of Good Hope, coaling at sea, or wherever neutral governments could be persuaded to allow the squadron to rendez-vous with German colliers, the outcome of the Battle of Tsushima, and possibly even of the entire war, might have been vastly different.
Whether this argument is valid seems doubtful (see, for example, Westwood, 1970), but the outcome was the Arctic Ocean Hydrographie Expedition (1910-1915), in which the Imperial Navy icebreakers executed the first systematic survey of the Northern Sea Route from Bering Strait to the Yenisey,
Spurred by the outcome of Tsushima, the Imperial Navy first formed a special committee (Pinkhenson, 1962:596), headed by A. I. Vil'kitskiy, an experienced arctic oceanographer and surveyor, who had carried out extensive survey work along the coasts of the Barents arid Kara seas. This committee recognized that the Northern Sea Route could be made into a practicable commercial route, but only by me ans of a detailed survey programme, extensive sounding traverses, and meticulous mapping, especially for the section east of the Yenisey, Furthermore, it would require the building of weather and radio stations, navigation aids, lighthouses, coal depots, and the compilation of detailed pilots. Vil'kitskiy's committee called for the use of six wooden survey vessels, which would work simultaneously along different seetions of the co ast.
The committee's report was not immediately acted upon. Instead in 1906 a further committee under Rear-Admiral Verkhovskiy was convened (Pinkhenson, 1962:599), and reached essentially the same coriclusions. One difference was that Verkhovskiy called for two steel-built survey vessels with some icebreaking capacity, Initially these vessels were seen as operating out of Arkhangel'sk, but subsequently the pressing need for a sea link with the Kolyma basin, arid concern over American influence in Chukotka, resulted in Vladivostok being chosen as the expeditiori's base. It was envisaged that over aperiod of several seasons, returning to Vladivostok each winter, the two vessels
would push their surveys sueeessively farther west, and ultimately, by rounding Mys Chelyuskina, they would eomplete the through passage.
THE SHIPS
It was th is plan of action th at WaS put into operation, Two identieal ieebreakers were laid down in the Navy shipyards on the Neva at St. Petersburg, and launehed in the fall of 1909 (Starokadomskiy, 1959: Transehe, 1925:371; Arngol'd, 1929), They were named Taymyr and Vaygaeh. They were steel-hulled, with plates varying in thiekness from 8 to 22 mm. The ships hulls were extremely rounded, along the lines of Nansens Fram and for the same reason, i. e, to deny the iee any purehase on the hull in the event of a severe nip. Frames were spaeed at 50 em interv als. A double bottom, and longitudinal and transverse watertight bulkheads dividing the hull into 35 eompartments theoretieally made the vessels praetically unsinkable.
Even by eontemporary ieebreaker standards they were relatively small vessels: 54 m in length; beam at the waterline 11 m: draught 4.4 m: displaeement about 1,200 tons. By eomparison Yermak launehed in 1898, and the only other true Russian ieebreaker alloat, was 98 m long; be am 21.6 m , draught about 8 m : and displaeement about 9,000 tons (Pinkhenson, 1962:270). For eomparison with eontemporary Canadian ieebreakers, Earl Grey, also launehed in 1909 and the queen of the Canadian ieebreaker fleet until her sale to the Russians in 1914, was 81.5 m long; beam 14.7 m, Taymyr and Vaygaeh were equipped with tri pIe-expansion steam engines of 1,220 rated horsepower; in eomparison Yermak's engines eould deliver 10,000 hp and Earl Greys 6,500 hp (Appleton, 1970:7;
1972).
Thus it is eie ar that the designer of the new vessels was not aiming at a heavy ieebreaker with maximum ieebreaking eapaeity, but at a highly manoeuvreable, shallow- draught survey vessel with some ieebreaking eapaeity. Arngol'd (1929:26) has emphasiz- ed that Taymyr and Vaygach were not expected to taekle heavy, multi-year iee. Their ieebreaking eapabilities were "suffieient for foreing a passage through frozen polynias and leads between them, and for breaking iee in newly frozen bays". A. I. Vil'kitskiy also stressed that the expedition ships were not intended for battering their way through solid heavy ice , their purpose was hydrographie work in open water, and the ice- strengthening with whieh they were provided was simply a proteetion against the inevitable eollisions with the iee (Pinkhenson, 1962:605).
However, Taymyr and Vaygach did possess eonsiderable enduranee. Their eoal bunkers could hold 500 tons , at an eeonomieal 6-knot speed, with a daily eonsumption of 6 tons, this was sufficient for more than 10 weeks steaming, i. e. for about 16,000 km. The pro visi ons rooms eould store enough food for the crew for 18 months.
The living quarters were weil insulated; the steel hull plates and frames were eovered with alternate layers of pulverized eork, kapok and rubberoid, together with an airspaee, making a total insulation layer of 25 em. In ease of wintering, when the fires would be drawn, and the steamheating non-operative, 10 eoal burning stoves were installed in various parts of eaeh sh ip. Lamps and the neeessary naphtha for fuel were earried tor periods when the eleetrieity would be shut off. In eaeh galley, the oven was eapable of baking 200 kilos of bread in one bateh. Each ship earried a radio transmitter, but the effeetive range was only 240 km.
Normal eomplement aboard eaeh ieebreaker was 50 offieers and men of the Imperial Navy. Sinee the expedition lasted live years, there was eonsiderable turnover in personnel. Indeed the medical offieers, Dr. Starokadomskiy aboard Taymyr, and Dr.
Arngol'd aboard Vaygaeh, were two of the few who stayed with the ships throughout the expedition. This was very usefuJ, sinee it is to these two men that we owe the two
best available accounts of the expedition. For a variety of reasons, Starokadomskiy's account is vastly more comprehensive and reliable and it is on this account in particular that this paper is based.
The first commanders were Captain Matisen aboard Taymyr and Captain Kolchak aboard Vaygach. The latter, of course, is better known in history in his capacity of Supreme Ruler of all the Russians, in command of the Whites in Siberia during the Civil War. Interestingly enough, while Kolchak appears in full in the 1947 edition of Starokadomskiy's book, he is totally eliminated from the later (1953 and 1959) editions.
The two icebreakers sailed on their maiden voyage on November 10, 1909, bound for Vladivostok. There were numerous quite lengthy delays and courtesy visits to foreign ports. For example, damage in Taymyr's engine room in the North Sea led to a 10 week sojourn in Le Havre, while the damage was being repaired. Further ports of call were Aigiers, Port Said, where Captain Matisen was replaced by Captain Makalinskiy, Perim, Djibouti, Colombo, Sabang, Singapore, Saigon, Cam Ranh, and Shanghai. They finally reached Vladivostok on July 16, 1910.
Here Makalinskiy, who had been only a stop-gap, was replaced as commander of Taymyr by Captain Davydov, perhaps better known as the captain of the gunboat Krasnyy Oktyabr', which in 1924 hoisted the Hammer and Sickle on Ostrov Vrangelya for the first time, and removed a party of Alaskans who were occupying it (Davydov, 1925; Stefansson, 1925:306). Kolchak remained in command of Vaygach, and overall command of the expedition was assumed by 1. S. Sergeyev, a proverbially cautious commander.
1910 SEASON
There was still time in the 1910 season for abrief reconnaissance foray into the Chukchi Sea, Of course the time available for actual survey work would be severely Iimited, both in this and subsequent seasons, by the choice of Vladivostok as expedition base.
The icebreakers had to steam 4,320 km just to reach Bering Strait; furthermore this arrangement necessitated the use of a coaling vessel in ports such as Bukhta Provideniya.
However, there really was no other choice, since there was no other port with the necessary supply and repair facilities in the Pacific at that time,
Taymyr and Vaygach put to sca on August 30, accompanied by the collier Atqun', which was to accompany them to Bukhta Provideniya. Having coaled from her as arranged at that port, the two icebreakers passed through Bering Strait, and hove to off the Iittle Eskimo settlement of Uelen on September 16, in the hope of getting a dear sky for an astronomical fix on Mys Dezhneva. On the 23, thwarted in this intent, they weighed anchor and headed north and west, sounding and surveying as they went. But they were not destined to get very far; only 30 km from Ue len, ne ar Mys Intsova, solid ice barred further progress. On October 3 the two vessels turned back, and by November 2 were back at Vladivostok. They had blooded their bows on arctic ice Ior the first time.
1911 SEASON
The 1911 season saw the two vessels putting to sea from Vladivostok on August 4.
Captain Kolchak had been replaced by Captain Loman aboard Vaygach, but otherwise there were few changes among the officers, Having coaled and watered at Bukhta Provideniya, by the evening of August 23 they were anchored in fog off Mys Dezhneva.
After waiting in va in Ior two days for a c1ear sky, Sergeyev ordered the icebreakers to proceed north and west. The procedure followed throughout the expedition when both vessels were sailing in company, was that one stayed inshare taking bearings on all conspicuous coastal features, and also sounding regularly, while the other steamed a parallel course a few kilometres offshore in order to ascertain the detail of the offshore
bathymetry. Following this procedure, and anchoring for the duration of each short arctic summer night, and carrying out marine biological and physical oceanographic research at selected stations, the expedition vessels made steady progress through icefree waters. Off Mys Severnyy (now Mys Shmidta) the first scattered floes appeared and in fog and snowsqualls the ships had to lie at anchor until August 31. With dear weather and icefree seas, progress was resumed westwards through Proliv Longa. Near the entrance to Chaunskaya Guba they met the steamer Kolyma, Captain Troyan, who was just returning from the Kolyma, the first steamer ever to visit that river. On the afternoon of September 3 Taymyr ran heavily aground, a frequent occurenee during the survey of the extremely shoal water of the East Siberian and Laptev seas. Vaygach also ran aground in trying to tow her off, and it was at the cost of 10 hours of work and 70 tons of fresh water that they finally got free.
On the morning of September 5, the icebreakers anchored off Mys Medvezhiy at the mouth of the Kolyma. The co ast from Bering Strait to the Kolyma had been accurately surveyed for the first time. On September 8 they started back in fog and snow, with every indication that winter was not far away. Off Mys Billingsa the vessels parted company, with Vaygach heading north to survey Ostrov Vrangelya, while Taymyr continued steadily east, filling in gaps in the surveying and sounding of the Chukchi coast.
In 1911 the extent and shape of Ostrov Vrangelya was known approximately particu- larly from the visits by the American vessels Cotwiti and Rogers in search of De Lonqs Jeannette in 1881 (Hooper, 1885; Gilder, 1883; Muir, 1917). but there was no accurate chart of the is le nds coasts, and perhaps more significantly, no Russians had yet visited the island.
Vaygach sighted the mountains of Ostrov Vrangelya on September 15, and e landing was made ne ar Mys Fomy at the southwest end of the island. An astronomical fix was determined and an iron beaeon with a brass plate recording the details of the visit, in Russian and English, was ereeted, Vaygach then proeeeded north and east around the islan d in open water, then south between Ostrov Vrangelya and Ostrov Geral'da, before returning to join Taymyr at Mys Dezhne va. It was this landing in 1911 that formed the major basis of the Soviet Unions strong re action to Mackenzie Kinqs rash statement that Ostrov Vrangelya belonged to Canada, in 1922 (see Barr, 1972:231;
Diubaldo, 1967:213),
By September 24 both vessels were back at Bukhta Provideniya and by Oetober 28, at Vladivostok. The sum total of the seasons work was 2,500 miles of co ast surveyed;
11 astronomical fixes established; and 2,900 soundings made.
1912 SEASON
Next year, 1912, the aim was to carry the survey west to the mouth of the Lena. The expedition began much earlier than in previous years, leaving Vladivostok on June 13.
Surveying the Kamchatka coast en toute, they reached Bukhta Provideniya on July 15;
here they coaled and watered as usual from Atqun', They passed Bering Strait on July 22, and despite a little ice in Proliv Longa, by the 29th they were back at Mys Medvezhiy, the terminal point of their previous ve ar:s survey.
The first objective was an accurate survey of all six of the Ostrova Medvezh'i; this was aceomplished between August 1 and 3. Names were bestowed on four of the islands so far nameless. From he re west the two vessels for the first time experienced something that was to plague them throughout their work in the western part of the East Siberian Sea and the Laptev Sea. Despite their shallow draught, the extreme shoal conditions prevented them from getting any closer than 22 km from the coast. At this distance,
of course, accurate survey was impossible. Fog and quite heavy ice complicated the situation. The sh ips' captains had to content themselves only with sounding, and proceeded west some 30 km offshore; even here depths were only 10-15 m.
On August 11 Mys Shalaurova on Ostrov Bol'shoy Lyakhovskiy was sighted. Here the v csse ls separated: Taymyr proceeded straight west through Proliv Lapteva, surveying the south coast of Ostrov Bol'shoy Lyakhovskiy. Vaygach meanwhile proceeded north up the west coast of Ostrov Bol'shoy and Malyy Lyakhovskiy. Heavy ice in the west end of proihr Sannikova prevented Vaygach from reaching Ostrov Kotelnyy. Instead she swung west to Ostrov Stol'bovoy, where a landing was made, an astronomical fix was determined, arid the coasts surveyed. From here she proceeded to the smal! islands of Ostrov Semenovskiy and Ostrov Vasilevskiy. On August 20 a party went ashore on Ostrov Vasil'evskiy, ancl some ptarmigan and waterfowl were shot. This visit to these two Iittle islands is quite significant, since this was the last known landing before they disappeared. They consisted entirely of ice-rieh sediments with massive bodies of ground ice in the permafrost, and as a result of the mechanical and thermal effects of wave action, they have since been total!y eliminated.
Two da ys later Vaygach reached Bukhta Tiksi ne ar the Lena delta, and Taymyr arrived four days later. The latter had spent the last 10 days in rather mundane and tedious survey werk along the mainland co ast, including the prominent headland of Mys Svyatoy Nos. Having watered at Bukhta Tiksi, now a bustling arctic port, but then practical!y uninhabited, the two ieebreakers got under way again on August 27. About 130 km northwest of the Lena delta a zone of heavy iee forced them to swing south of their planned direct course northwest to Poluostrov Taymyr. Despite difficult ice con- ditions, fog and snow, Vaygach, whose captain, Loman, proved more aggressive, manag- ed to reach 76° 09'N on the east coast of Poluostrov Taymyr on September 8, but here she was forced to turn back. In the process her hul! was quite badly den ted, and she began to le ak. Having extricated themselves from the ice, the two ships headed directly back east almest in icefree waters. On September 23 they passed Bering Strait southward bound, and by October 23 they were back in Vladivostok,
1913 SEASON
The fol!owing year the campaign was renewed, but und er new commanders: Captain B. A. Vil'kitskiy, son of A. I. Vil'kitskiy, took over command of Taymyr and Captain P. A. Novopashennyy assumed command of Vaygach, Sergeyev retained his position as expedition leader. The ships sailed from Vladivostok o n July 9, 1913 arid by the 20th had reached Bukhta Provideniya where they coaled from Argun' as usual. During this operation, however, Sergeyev suffered a stroke which left his left side paralyzed. The outcome was that hc was evacuated south by sea, and Vil'kitskiy took command of the expedition.
Thus it was tho beginning of August before the icebreakers ultimately passed Bering Str ait. Vaygach was detailed to carry out an ice reconnaissance towards Ostrov Vrangelya, while Taymyr continued the mundane task of adding still more soundings to the route along the mainland co ast. On August 16 the two icebreakers rendez-vous'd at Ostrov Krestovskiy in the Medvezh'i group, Vaygach had been unable to reach Ostrov Vrangelya due to heavy ice.
From lierc the vessels separated again, with Ostrov Preobrazheniya off the co ast of Poluostrov Taymyr as the rendez-vous. Vaygach would fol!ow the mainland coast, while Taymyr set a more northerly course around the north of Novosibirskiye Ostrova.
Although entangled for some time amongst shoals in extremely shal!ow water (5 m or less) Taymyr managed to extricate herself arid to proceed northw ards. Early on the
morning of August 20 a smalI, high, rocky island was sighted; a landing was made and the flag hoisted. This was named Ostrov Vil'kitskogo. Next morning Ostrov Bennetta was sighted, but a landing was ruled out by heavy seas. On the afternoon of August 23 the rendez-vous was completed as planned off Ostrov Preobrazheniya. As always, Vaygach had had serious problems with the shallow-water conditions along the mainland coast in the Laptev and East Siberian seas, but had succeeded in surveying the south and east coasts of Ostrov Begicheva.
A few hours were spent ashore on Ostrov Preobrazheniya, then the ships proceeded n orth. Vaygach ran aground ne ar the mouth of Bukhta Marii Pronchishchevoy, and had to call for help; thereafter both vessels surveyed the fiord-like inlet together. During the next four days, as the two ships worked their way slowly north along the east coast of Poluostrov Taymyr, surveying and sounding the tangled maze of headlands and islands, bedevilled by fog, snows qualls and rain, hopes of rounding Mys Chelyuskina were high, They had met no heavy ice thus far, and the expectations were that Mys Chelyuskina would also be icefree, since, as far as was known, off it lay only deep, open water, with no barriers against which the ice could pile up.
On September 1, however, they encountered a field of solid ice right at the cape, with its edge stretching away to the northeast. The icebreakers turned north along the edge of this barrier, with the intention of rounding it on the ncrth. On the afternoon of September 2 a low island was discovered; it was named Ostrov Tsesarevicha Alekseya, subsequently renamed Ostrov Malyy Taymyr in 1926. After abrief landing, the two ships continued to follow the ice edge north and west, with Taymyr in the lead.
SEVERNAYA ZEMLYA
That night, for the first time in their foul' seasons in the Arctic Ocean, they encountered icebergs, some 10-12 m in height. This posed another mystery, almost as puzzling as the unbroken ice off Mys Chelyuskina, What was the source of the icebergs? The glaciers 01 Svalbard, Zemlya Frantsa Iosifa were too far west, while the glaciers of Ostrov Bennetta were equally remote and too small.
The mystery was 500n solved; at dawn next morning a steep, mountainous coast emerged from the haze. IIGygach was ordered to explore south along the coast, while Taymyr proceeded northwest. Generally Tav mvt was able to follow the shore lead between the landfast ice and the pack, To port lay a high precipitous co ast, from time to time interrupted by inlets or straits, but heavy ice prevented closer investigation.
Thus Vil'kitskiy was unable to determine whether this was one island or an archipelago.
Having surveyed 80 km of coast, Taymyr moored with ice anchors to the landfast ice and waited for Vaygach to catch up. The latter appeared on the morning of the 4th, and also moored to the landfast ice, dose inshore. Vaygach had made !ittle progress south along the coast before she was baulked by solid ice. Novopashennyy landed a party on the southeastern cape, which was named Mys Yevgenova (now Mys Vaygacha).
At no on on September 4 a party from both ships went ashore to take astronomical and magnetic observations. Their position was established to be 80° 04'N; 97° 12'E and the site was named Mys Berqa. A post was set up with date and name of the expedition.
At 1800 hours the entire personnel of both ships, apart from a skeleton crew on watch, was paraded on shore, and Vil'kitskiy read a proclamation daiming the new landmass for the Tsar. The Imperial flag was hoisted to the accompaniment of a gun salute, and the landmass was named Zemlya Imperatora Nikolaya Ir.
Both vessels now proceeded farther northwestwards in company along a fairly con- tinuous shore polynia. But gradually the ice became heavier and eventually the land to port came to an end. Beyond, heavily-ridged multi-year ice stretched to the horizon.
They had reached the northern tip of the new land (now Mys Arkticheskiy), and further progress was impossible. The icebreakers had traced the coastline over a distance of 290 km, and by dead reckoning they were at 810 17'N. Despite an extensive water sky to the northwest, Vil'kitskiy wisely decided to retreat, although his decision was far from being unanimously popular.
Having successfully returned to Mys Vaygacha, the icebreakers were still unable to make any progress westwards along the south coast. After a visit to Ostrov Malyy Taymyr, and the discovery of nearby Ostrov Starokadomskogo, on September 10 the ieebreakers were blocked by solid iee only 16 km from Mys Chelyuskina. A party of six men, led by Dr. Starokadomskiy reached the cape overland and built a small cairn.
On the 12th both ships made one last eoneerted effort to force the iee barrier but had t.o retreat; in 24 hours they made only 5 km.
Heading almost due east, they were in completely open water by the afternoon of the 15th. At sunrise on the 18th they reached Ostrov Bennetta and a landing party went ashore to loeate and re cover geologieal sampIes left by Baron Toll in 1902. The mission was sueeessful and a cross and plaque to Tolls memory were ereeted. Having surveyed the co asts of the island, the ieebreakers proeeeded east. On October 5 they passed Mys Dezhneva southward bound. A violent storm in the Bering Sea exhausted their eoal reserves and this resulted in an emergeney 10-day visit to St. Miehael's, Alaska. Having bought enough eoal to reaeh Petropavlovsk, they reached that port on Oetober 27. By November 25 they were back at Vladivostok.
1914 SEASON: THE THROUGH-PASSAGE
The following season, 1914, the two ieebreakers were ordered to eomplete the throuqh- passage to Arkhangel'sk; hydrographie work would be undertaken only if it would not hinder the aehievement of that goal. The offieers remained unehanged from the previous season.
The ships sailed from Vladivostok on June 7, but there were several delays before they got down to their real task. The first week was spent in bathymetrie work in the Tusearora Deep off the eoast of Japan. Not until July 28 did they reaeh Bukhta Provideniya. The next task they were assigned was to try to rescue the crew of Stefansso ns Karluk, marooned on Ostrov Vrangelya sinee the ship had been erushed the previous January (Bartlett, 1928; Bartlett and HaIe, 1916; Stefansson, 1925), While Vaygach proceeded with hydrographie work along the Chukotka co ast, Taymyr steamed to Norne to get the latest information on the reseue attempts. Her visit eaused quite a stir. and made the pages of the "Norne Nugget" for August 3, 1914 (Barr, 1972:229).
The following day the news of the outbreak of war reaehed even such a remote spot as Norne. As units of the Imperial fleet, Taymyr and Vaygach might eoneeivably be required for active duty. Vil'kitskiy immediately put to sea to rendez-vous with Vaygach and eonsult with Novopashennyy as to their course of action. The outeome of this eonsultation was that Vaygach should still attempt to reaeh Ostrov Vrangelya, while Taymyr would backtrack to Novo-Mariyinskiy on the Anadyr to ask for orders from the Naval Command in St. Petersburg. Finally the reply came: the icebreakers were ordered to proeeed with their mission.
Steaming back north through Bering Strait, Vil'kitskiy hurried to catch up withVaygach.
On August 19 Taymyr reached her sister-ship beset in the iee within sight of Ostrov Vrangelya, indeed only some 25 km from the shore. She had been trying for several days to reaeh the island, but to no avail. As the two vessels tried to extrieate thernsel- ves, Vaygach was completely immobilized for a spell: an underwater projection of iee
became jammed in her propeller. A diver had to be sent down to saw off this ice tongue.
By August 19 both vessels were back at Kolyuchinskaya Guga; Vaygaeh's hull had been dented and she had lost a propeller blade. Having coaled and watered from a collier they had ananged to meet them there, they sailed again on August 21. During the next two days they made repeated attempts to reach Ostrov Vrangelya, but in vain. The marooned crew of Karluk were finally rescued by the Alaskan schoonerKing and Winge on September 7.
The first task of the two icebreakers was to survey some of the small islands north of Novosibirskiye Ostrova. On August 27Taymyr visited and surveyed Ostrov Vilkitskoqo , Vaygach was supposed to survey Ostrov Zhannetta and Ostrov Genriyetta, but could not reach them due to ice. Instead she discovered and surveyed another island, Ostrov Zhokhova.
By September 2, both vessels were back at Mys Chelyuskina; this year ice conditions in Proliv Vil'kitskogo were immeasurably better, and they passed the straits without difficulty. But off Mys Neupokoyeva, the southwest corner of Severnaya Zemlya, they r an into heavy ice. After abrief landing, the icebreakers weighed about midnight and headed slowly south through the ice. Fog caused long delays while they lay at ice anchors, but they made steady, though tortuous progress, dictated by the leads and polynias. They passed the Ostrova Geyberga but on September 9, off the Ostrova Firnleya Taymyr was caught between two large floes pivoting around each other and was severely nipped. She received heavy damage on the port side beneath the waterline;
the bulkheads of the transverse and Iorar d coal bunkers were stove in; rivets in the hull plating were extensively sprung; and the water started to pour in. The pressure fortunately ceased, the leaks were stopped, and the water pumped out, but the ship had been seriously weakened. Another similar nip might prove fatal. Vaygach also suffered damage from ice pressure; she broke another propeller blade, and was taking water quite steadily.
With the chance of pressure being renewed at any minute, Taymyr's crew spent the night in moving reserves of food, warm clothing and fuel from the hold to the upper deck, in preparation for abandoning ship. In the midst of all this anxiety, tension and bustle, while trying to reach Vaygaeh, the radio operator happened to pick up a totally unexpected transmission from some unknown ship (Ban, 1974a :6). He asked the other ship to identify herself, and was informed that she was Eclipse, some 275 km to the southwest.
Eclipse, a Scottish whaler, had been dispatched by the Russian government under the command of the veteran Norwegian arctie explorer, Otto Sverdrup, to search for any traces of the missing Rusanov and Brusilov expeditions (Sverdrup, 1928). In 1912, at the end of a summers geological fieldwork on Svalbard, Rusanov with ten eompanions had sailed east in the diminutive Getkules, in an attempt at traversing the Northern Sea Route. Apart from a message left at Matochkin Shar, nothing more had been heard from the expedition (Ban, 1974b). Brusilov, in Svyataya Anna, a somewhat more appropriate vessel, had also set out to tackle the Northern Sea Route. Svyataya Annahad last been seen as she fought her way through the ice of Yugorskiy Shar into the Kara Sea on September 4, 1912 (Ban, 1975b). Sverdrup had instructions to search the coasts of the Kara Sea for any sign of these expeditions, from the north island of Novaya Zemlya all the way to Mys Chelyuskina. Eelipse had penetrated east from Dikson, and at the time contact was made withTaymyr andVaygach, was temporarily icebound near Mys Vilda.
The unexpected contact with another expedition must have been a source of great relief to the officers and men aboardTaymyr and Vaygaeh. An animated exchange began, with
Sverdrup reporting all he knew of the progress of the war. Sverdrup thought that he might be able to reaeh the ieebreakers, but fortunately the iee prevented hirn. Fram his wintering at Mys Vilda he was able to aet as an essential radio relay-station between Taymyr and Vaygaeh and St. Petersburg, Had he moved any farther north, he would have lost eontaet with the mainland. At the same time, even at Mys Vil'da, he was at the limit of Taymyr's range; had they been any farther apart they would not habe been able to read eaeh other.
After some more alanning iee pressures, and minor southwards progress, by September 24 Taymyr and Vaygaeh reaehed their enforeed wintering sites: Taymyr lay ne ar Bukhta Dika , Vaygaeh 25 km NNW of her; and Eelipse at Mys Vil'da, 275 km to the so uthwest.
All three vessels made normal wintering preparations, and fairly rigid timetables of aetivities were inaugurated to eounteraet boredom and ward off scurvy.
Vilk itskiy, Novopashennyy and Sverdrup now began to wrestle with the problem of what would happen if the iee were not to break up the following season to free Taymyr and Vaygaeh, or if their somewhat depleted co al reserves were used up in manoeuvring to get out of the ice. There was insuffieient food for the crews of the two ieebreakers to survive a seeond wintering, The ultimate outeome, worked out in eollaboration with the Chief Hydrographie Direetorate in St. Petersburg, was a rather eomplex preeautionary evaeuation of half the cr ews. In the spring supply depots were laid between Eclipse and Taymyr, and on April 29 Sverdrup started north on skis with three men and three dogteams, Meanwhile Vaygaeh's eomplement of the evaeuation party hiked aeross the iee to Taymyr, On May 19 the evaeuation party, 39 in all, set off to walk the 275 km to Eclipse, eseorted by Sverdrup and his men, In the meantime Nikofor Begiehev, a very experieneed northerner, had trekked north to Eclipse from the Turukhansk area with 650 reindeer. The caravan of reindeer and sailors started back south on July 15, and by August 19, had reaehed Gol'ehikha on the Yenisey, some 700 km away,
In the event, Taymyr and Vaygach got under way without too mueh diffieulty when breakup eame in early August. They were badly delayed by iee and fog among the islands of Arkhipelag Nordenshel'da, but had reaehed Dikson by the end of the rnorith.
Onee they had bunkered, and onee Vaygach had pieked up the overland party at Gol'ehikha, they were ready to proeeed west. The rest of the voyage was plain sailing and on September 16, 1915 Taymyr and Vaygaeh reaehed Arkhanqelsk. The 'Arctic Oeean Hydrographie Expedition was over.
ASSESSMENT
An assessment of the aehievements of the expedition is not a simple task. Nobody ean dispute that the diseovery of Severnaya Zemlya and the other small islands was a signifieant eontribution; as the last major territorial diseovery to be made on the surfaee of the globe, the finding of Severnaya Zemlya was a partieular triumph. As the seeond through passage of the Northern Sea Route, and as the first fram east to west, the 1914-1915 voyage eertainly deserves its plaee in history. But in terms of the furthering of the eause of the Northern Sea Route as a praetieal shipping route, both of these major aehievements tended to backfire to some degree.
For many years after the eompletion of the expedition, it was argued by many eminent aretie navigators and scientists, among them men such as Novopashennyy, Transehe, and Starokadomskiy (Pinkhenson, 1962:674-676; Transehe, 1925:392; Arngol'd, 1929), who had taken part in the expedition, that the presenee and position of Severnaya Zemlya, for the time being, ruled out any possibility of the Northern Sea Route beeoming a praetieable route. It was feit that there was little likelihood of Praliv Vil'kitskogo regularly clearing of iee every season. With regard to the thraugh-passage aeeomplished
in 1914-1915, the feature which detracted from it was the fact that Taymyr and Vaygaeh had been foreed to winter. Not a single vessel yet had managed to make the passage from At/antie to Paeific without wintering, and the scepties doubted if it were possible.
Clearly this was unacceptable for a commercial route.
A useful measure of how mueh weight these arguments carried is to be found in the movement of Russian naval vessels in 1916-1917. German submarine aetivities in the White and Barents seas neeessitated the movement of warships from the Pacifie, since the Baltie and Blaek Sea fleets were bottled up by the enemy. In this situation, precisely the one whieh it was hoped the Aretie Ocean Hydrographie Expedition would help to solve by demonstrating the reliable navigability of the Northern Sea Route, Naval Command routed the vessels involved by way of Suez and Gibraltar (Pinkhenson, 1962 :643). En route the battleship Peresvel was sunk by German mines as she emerged into the Meditenanean at Port Said in January, 1917, and 250 men of her erew were lost.
Of course the Revolution, the Civil "'vVar and the Interventions militated against any massive attempts at arctic exploration for some time, but it is significant that no attempt was made to follow up Vil'kitskiy's discovery of Severnaya Zemlya until 1930.
That season a Jour-man expedition, led by G. A. Ushakov and relying on dogteams for transport was dispatched to the archlpe laqo. In the course of two seasons work, Ush ako v and his men established the extent of the archipeluqo. surveyed the co asts of all the major islands, and produced the first comprehensive map (Ushakov, 1959; Urvantsev, 1969: Ban, 1975a).
Traffic on the Kara Sea Route to the Ob' and the Yenisey in the west, and to the Kolyma in the east slowly built up during the twenties. Use of the entire route, however, was much slower in developing. The voyage of Arnundsens Maud was forced to winter three times: once at Mys Chelyuskina, once at Chaunskaya Guba, an d once at Mys Serdtse- Kamen' (Belov, 1959:153-56).
Not unti! 1932 was a serious attempt made by the Soviet Government to conquer the Sea Route. Even then, however, Sibiryakov, the vessel chosen, WdS scarcely the best available; she was originally the Newfoundland sealer Bellavenlure of only 1380 tons displacement with engines of only 2,000 hp. She reached Bering Strait in one season, admittedly, but the last part of the voyage WdS made under improvised sails, since she had lost her propeller (Vize, 1946). The following ye e r, Chelyuskin an iee-strengthened freighter, met with considerably less success. Beset in the ice ne ar Ko lyuchinskave Guba, she drifted southeast to the n arrows of Bering Strait, but at the critical moment the drift changed, and the Chelyuskin swung back north into the Chukchi Sea. She was eventually crushed and sank, but her crew were evacuated by air (Shmidt et al., 1935).
The th rouqh-passuqe by the icebreaker Ulke in 1934 can perhaps be t.akcn to represent the true beginning of the Soviet exploitation of the Northern Sea Route. Ulke steamed from Vladivostok to Leningrad in one season without serious incident (Vize, 1946; Nik o- layeva and Sarank in, 1963). Th e next year carqo vessels began to move along the Sea Route with icebreaker escort in both directions, and it is from these beginnings that the Northem Sea Route as it is today h as grown.
The true link between the voyages of Taymyr and Vaygach lies in the survey and scientific work carried out during the expedition. Unfortunately much of the scientific data were lost by fire in Yaroslavl in 1918 during the Civi! War, the archives of the Hydrographie Directorate having been evacuated here from Petrograd (Belov, 1957: 11).
Thus, in essence the real contribution lay in the charts and pilots that were produced (Pinkhenson, 1962:631). On the basis of the 1911 surveys, a new chart of the coast of Chukotka as Iar west as the Kolyma had already been produced by 1912, In that year too, Captain Davydov compiled the first pilot for this same stretch of COdSt. By 1914
eharts based on the expedition's work had been published for the entire eoast from Bering Strait to Mys Chelyuskina. In 1922 the Central Hydrographie Direetorate published the first Pilot of the Siberian Seas, divided into three parts: Mys Dezhneva to Chaunskaya Cuba. Chaunskaya Guba to Khatangskiy Zaliv , and Khatangskiy Zaliv to Mys Chelyu- skina. Data from the Ar ctic Oeean Hydrographie Expedition were also heavily used in a work published by the Central Hydrographie Direetorate in 1918 on the meteorology and oeeanography of the Kara Sea and Siberian Sea. Finally the first pilot for the Kara Sea, eompiled by N. 1. Yevgenov in 1930 also lcaned heavily on the data gathered by Tcivnivt and VClygCleh in 1914-1915. Thus, development of the Northern Sea Route, when itdid finally eome under the Soviet regime, owed not a little to the efforts of the officers and men of the Imperial Navy who served abo ard T'av mvt and VClygCleh.
References
A P pIet0 TIr T. E. (1970): Prince Edward Island: marine scr vice in tue 1800's. Transport Maqazfne , March-April: 5-7.
A P p I et0 TI ,T. E. (1972): R u s s i a n regnest. S e n p o r t s a n d t h e Shipping W o r l d . December: 16-39, Arm s t r 0 n 9 , T. E. (1972): The Northem See Route, 1968-70. Inter-Nord 12: 118-120.
Arm s t r 0 n g , T. E. (1973): The Northern Sea Route, 1972. Polar Record 16 (104): 742-743.
Arm s t r 0 n 9 , T. E. (1974): The Nor th er n Sea Route, 1973. Polar Record 17 (107): 174-175.
ArTIgoI' d , E. Y. (1929): Po z ave tn crnu puti. Mos kv a.
Bil rr, W. (1972): The voyages of Taymyr end Vaygac.h to Ostrov Vrangelya, 1910-1915. Polar Re cord 16 (101): 213-234.
BClr r , W. (1974a): Ot to Sverdrup to the rescue of 1118 Rus sian Imperial Navy. Arctic 27 (1): 3-14.
Bar r, W. (1974b): Ru s an ov , Gerk ules and the Northern Sea Route. Canadian Slavonic Papers 26 (4):
569-611.
Bar rI W, (1975a): Severnaya Zeml ya: the last major discovery. Geographical Journal 14 (1): 59-71.
Barr, W. (1975b): South to Zemlya Pr ants a .Iosifa : the eruise of Sv. Anna and Albnnov's sied gc journey, 1912-1914. Canadian Slavenie Papers 27 (4): in press.
Bar t let t , R. A. (1928): The 10Vof Bab Bartlett: th e true story of forty years of seafaring and exploration.
New York , London : G. P. Putn ams Sons.
E a rtlet 1 , R. A. an d R. T. HaI e (1916): The last voyage ot the Karluk. Boston: Sm all and Maynard.
Be I0v, M. 1. (1957): Severnyy Morskoy Put'. Leninqred : Izdatel'stvo .Morsk oy Transport."
Bel0 v , M. 1. (1959): Sovetskoye arkticheskoye moreplavaniye 1917-1932 gg. Istori ya otkrytiya i osvoyeniya Severnogo Moj-skoqo Puti , III. Va. Va. Gakkel' and M. B. Cher ncnk o (eds.}. Leninqr ad :Izdatel'stvo
"Morskoy Transport."
Da vy d0v, B. (1925): V. tisk akh l'da. Plavaniye kanlodki "Krasnyy Okt'yabr" na Ostrov Vrangelya.
Len in qrnrl : Redaktsionno-izdatelskiy otdel morskogo vedomstva.
Dill 10 a I da, R. J. (1967): Wrangling over Wranget IsJand. Canadian Historiea! Review 48 (3): 201-226.
Gi 1 der, W. H. (1883): lee-pack and tundra. An aecount of a search for the Jeannette end a sledge journey through Siberia. Ncw York: Scribners Sons.
E0 0per, C. L. (1885): Report of the eruise of the U. S. revenue steamer Thomas Corwin in the Aretic Oeean in 1881. Weshinqton: James Anglim.
Muir , J. (1917): The crutse of the Corwin: journal of th e aretie expe diticn of 1881, in search of De Long and the .Jeannette. Boston and New York : Houghton and Mifflin.
Na nsen, F. (1897): Partbest North. Westminster: Archibald Constable and Co.
Ni k 0I a y eva, A. G. an cl V. I. S ara n kin (1963): Sil'nee ld ov. Moskva: Izclatel'stvo "Morskoy Transport."
No r d e n skiö I cl, A. E. (1881): The voyage ot the Yoga arouncl Asia and Europe. Landon: Maemillan ancl Co.
Pink he nsan, D. J\1. (1962): Pr ob lem a Severnogo Morskogo Puti v epokhu Kapitalisma. Istoriya otkrytiya i osvoyeniya Severnogo Morskogo Puti , II. Va. Ya. Gakk el ' and M. B, Chernenko (cds.) , Leningrad: Izdatel'stvo .Morskoy Transport."
S h11li d t , O. Yu. et el . (1935): The voyage of the Chelyuskin. London : Chatte end Windus.
Stara k a dom ski Y ,L.M. (1959): Pyat' plavaniy v Severnom Ledovitom Oke ane. Moskva: Cosude rstven- noye Iz de telstvo Geograficheskoy Literetur-y.
S te fan s s0 n , V. (1925): Thea d v e n t u r e of WrangelIsland. N e w York: M a c m i l l e n .
S ver d r u P , O. (1928): Under Ru s sisk flag. Os10: H. Aschenbourg and Co.
Toll, E. von (1909): Die Russische Polarfahrt eIer "Sarja" 1900-1902. Berlin: Georg Reimer.
T r ans eheI N. A. (1925): The Siberian sea road: the work of the Russian Hyclrographical Expeclition to the Arctic, 1910--1915. Geographieal Review 15: 367-398.
Ur va nts e v, N. N. (1969): Na Severnoy Zemle, Leningracl: Gidrometeorologicheskoye Izdatel'stvo, U shak 0v, G. A. (1959): Po nekhozhenoy zemle, Moskva: Gosudarstvennoye Izdatel'stvo Geograficheskoy
Literatury.
VizC' , V. Yu. (1946): Na "Sibiryakove" i "Utke" cherez ledovitye morya. Moskva-Leningrad: lzdatel'stvo Glavsevmorputi.
VIi e5two0cl, J. N, (1970): Witnesses of Tsushima. Tokyo: Sophia University.
